Did PHP's rand() get better?

Question

I know that PHP used the system implementation for its rand() function, which is usually a weak LCG or LFSR implementation. Did this change? In case it still does, I am using Fedora 32.

PHP states in its documentation that rand() does not create cryptographically secure values.

I've written a small script, that creates a 400x400px PNG by randomly coloring pixels black or white:

<?php

$resolution = 400;

header("Content-type: image/png");
$im = imagecreatetruecolor($resolution, $resolution)
    or die("Cannot Initialize new GD image stream");

$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255,255,255);

for ($y = 0; $y < $resolution; $y++) {
    for ($x = 0; $x < $resolution; $x++) {
        if (rand(0, 1)) {
            imagesetpixel($im, $x, $y, $white);
        }
    }
}
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);

?>

I cannot see patterns anymore when using the function in PHP7.3 though. May there be patterns at a level I cannot display in my experiment?

rand():

random_int(),

for use where unbiased results are critical

according to PHP's docs

Answer 1

If you can't see obvious patterns, that does not make it cryptographically secure! See also my answer to this question on our sibling site: What does it mean for a random number generator to be cryptographically secure?

At the risk of stating the obvious, rand() and mt_rand() are NOT SECURE for security purposes. Do NOT use them for things like shuffling a deck of virtual cards in games where there is (virtual) money at stake, generating security tokens, or any such thing. Such random functions are meant for fast randomness where security does not matter. Common applications for insecure randomness are simulations and games (the game AI repeating itself in 1 out of every 2 billion games is fine, but a secret key repeating itself 1 in every 2 billion keys can be crackable in a reasonable amount of time).

By coincidence I was looking at this 2 hours ago as well, since I was curious if they had finally aliased rand() to use mt_rand() instead, since mt_rand has been both faster and better since its introduction many years ago, but this does not appear to be the case. Therefore:

• To generate insecure, fast random: $n = mt_rand(0, 10); generates a number from 0 through 10 (inclusive) (docs)
• To generate secure random data: $data = random_bytes(32); generates 32 bytes of random data (docs)
• To generate a secure random number: $n = random_int(0, 10); generates a number from 0 through 10 (inclusive) (docs)
  Note that this only goes up to PHP_INT_MAX, which is at most approximately 2⁶⁴, so too small as a security key by itself. Use random_bytes() for generating secret keys, security tokens, etc. This function may aid in generating an unpredictable number, like for shuffling a deck of cards, where you may need a random number ≤52 instead of random bytes.